


Syconium

by tetrahedron



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Detectives, Gen, Murder Mystery, Pre-Canon, eldritch horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 07:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15407967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetrahedron/pseuds/tetrahedron
Summary: Every cop who works on the Citadel long enough has a story like this. Different names, different places, but the same unspoken warning— some cases are better off unsolved.





	Syconium

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set couple of years before the events of ME1, while Garrus is a rookie detective at C-Sec.

In the artificial light of the early morning cycle, the Presidium was at its most immaculate. At this hour, with no vendors hawking their wares in its sprawling plazas, and no inhabitants scurrying along its gleaming white avenues, it was possible to appreciate the true scope of the place: the verdant parkland that stretched upward in one long, seemingly infinite parabola; the clean, sloping lines of the offices and embassies leading gently into the muted blues and greens of the gardens. From where he knelt at the edge of the carefully manicured grounds, Garrus could hear tinkling strains of music playing softly on hidden speakers. A warm breeze drifted out from a hidden air shaft, mobilizing the fluffy clouds that spun lazily through the simulated blue of the atmosphere. At his feet, the broken body of a human man lay splayed out on the footpath like an insect caught on a windshield. Against the path’s pristine white polymer plating, the dried blood looked like excrement.

The human was dead all right. Garrus’s omni-tool stuttered and whirred as he scanned the corpse. While it labored through an analysis of the man’s extensive injuries, he took in the fractures on the legs, the contusions on the head and torso, the swollen stump of flesh where the nose had been repeatedly smashed in. Something prickled at the base of his spine. Since making detective he’d seen his share of violent deaths, but nothing like this: the human’s body had been reduced to little more than one raw, contiguous wound. At first glance the sheer magnitude of the damage seemed to suggest the impersonal violence of some inhuman force— a car crash, maybe, or an industrial equipment malfunction. And yet there was something chillingly precise about the way the kneecaps had been shattered, the soft tissues pulped beyond recognition, the face beaten into a ghastly rictus of mangled cartilage and broken teeth.  

With a single ominous click, the scanner’s holographic display froze up and abruptly winked out. Garrus swore, leaning back on his haunches to punch in the restart code. 

The Logic Arrest v.1, while standard issue to all Citadel officers, was little more than a glorified flashlight compared to the models he’d had access to in basic. Once, very early on in his C-Sec career, he’d tried overclocking the mainframe, only to have it nearly melt his hand off at the wrist the next time he’d run an identification scan. The only thing that kept him from chucking it out the nearest airlock was the knowledge of the shit he’d be in once someone back at HQ checked the tracking data and registered that one of their detectives was ostensibly floating around in open space. 

Gritting his teeth, he rapped the device sharply against his knee. With a piercing off-key trill of notes, the omni-tool rebooted, the Ariake logo appearing in a bright blue swirl on the screen. Garrus impatiently keyed through to the scanner, letting out a grunt of relief as he saw the data he had collected was still intact. 

Aiming the input receiver at the human’s head, he attempted an identification scan. 

The omni-tool hummed for a few minutes before delivering the final verdict with a tinny chime. No matching results.

Suppressing the urge to strip off the faceplate and manually disable the sound circuits, Garrus glanced back down at the body. Whoever the stiff turned out to be, he was sporting enough lethal wounds to drop a full grown krogan. The lab would have a field day determining the primary cause of death. As his gaze lingered on what was left of the dead man’s face, the prickling feeling in his spine intensified. This wasn’t a hit-and-run, or a mugging gone wrong, he thought, leaning in closer. Someone had systematically beaten this man to death.

“Detective Vakarian?”

Even after a year of hearing it, the rank preceding his name still occasionally caught Garrus off guard. He blinked, fighting down the compulsion to look around for the old man, and turned to find a patrol officer hovering anxiously behind him. From the expression on his face, it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get Garrus’s attention.

“Pathology called in, sir.” The officer’s tone was polite, but Garrus thought he could detect a faint undercurrent of curiosity. “They’re running late again.”

Coming from pathology, ‘late’ could mean anything from a few minutes to several hours. “What’s the hold up?” 

“IA’s down there.” The officer shrugged. “Guess someone got shoddy with the paperwork.”

More likely they suspected someone had neglected to file it in triplicate, Garrus thought sourly. “Thanks,” he said, trying to sound like he meant it. It wasn’t the patrol unit’s fault Internal Affairs had its head up its ass, and they’d been waiting out here far longer than he had.

The officer didn’t respond. Garrus looked up to find the turian squinting at him in a way that had become depressingly familiar over the last three years. 

“Pardon my asking, sir, but you wouldn’t happen to be-”

“Nope,” Garrus grunted, scowling down at the readout on his omni-tool. “I’m his son.”

“Ah, of course.” The officer sounded disappointed. “I heard he’d retired, but when I saw the name on the roster I thought maybe I’d gotten lucky.” 

“Sorry,” Garrus said dryly, adjusting the moniter. “I guess your luck’s run out.”

“I followed all his major cases, you know.” Glancing up, Garrus registered with mild alarm that the officer’s eyes had gone starry and unfocused. “The Revellus murders, the Cynax kidnapping. Even that stand-off with the elcor crime family.” He shook his head admiringly, sucking in his breath through his teeth. “Not many like him on the force these days. That commendation is well deserved.”

“I’ll let him know,” Garrus said, rapping the screen again a little harder than necessary. It seemed like there was someone in every department who felt compelled to tell him what a shining example Castis Vakarian had set during his time at C-Sec. It wasn’t that Garrus disagreed, exactly— the old man had certainly earned his accolades. But sometimes he thought he could do without the constant reminder of how far he had to go to live up to his father’s legacy.

His stomach growled, providing a different kind of reminder— the call had come in so early that he’d stumbled out of bed and into the skycar without eating. “Has the kava shown up yet, or is IA investigating that too?”

“Kava’s here, sir,” the officer said, belatedly snapping into formal stance again as he recalled he was addressing a superior. He glanced over one shoulder and then back at Garrus, fidgeting nervously with his holster.

Garrus shifted his weight back onto his heels, deliberating. The proximity of a hot cup of kava exerted a magnetic pull on his senses, and yet he found himself reluctant to leave the scene of the crime. 

The question of the dead man’s identity needled at him. The subset of the population that didn’t register in the Citadel’s identification database was vanishingly small. Occasionally there were instances of undocumented passengers smuggled in through illicit makeshift docking stations, or stowaways who succeeded in slipping past security checkpoints, but the Customs Division generally managed to track them down without much trouble. Then again, there were also ways to get your records deleted, if you had the chops to get through the security firewall, or, barring that, the credits to pay someone who could. Even his fellow officers weren’t always immune to the allure of a little extra cash flow. 

He rose slowly, brushing his hands off on his thighs.

“Any identification found on the body?” he asked, doing his best to ignore the way the officer’s eyes widened as the corpse came into full view. 

“No, sir,” the officer responded, trying and failing to avoid staring. “That is, we hadn’t checked.” His mandibles pulled in tight against his face. “Our instructions were to secure the area and wait for you.”

“You did fine,” Garrus said, giving him an amused glance. It obviously wasn’t a detail he’d been assigned before. Then again, it wasn’t everyday that a Presidium patrol unit found a corpse sprawled out across the Commons like a sunbathing hanar. Most violent crime played out deep in the neon underbelly of the Wards, and even there the Keepers tended to make short work of any stray organic material left lying around too long. His father used to complain that fully half his job was spent preventing them from clearing the physical evidence of a case away before it could be properly inspected.

Thoughts of kava temporarily put on hold, Garrus knelt down again, looking for anything distinctive that might help reveal the man’s identity. No rings or tattoos that he could see. Both hands were badly damaged— four of the fingers were bent back at a sharp angle, one thumbnail torn partially away from the skin. Defensive wounds, he would have said, though that was better left to pathology. No omni-tool, but around the left forearm he noticed a wide band of skin a shade paler than the surrounding flesh. 

The man’s clothes weren’t in much better condition than he was, but it was clear that even when they’d been intact they’d been unremarkable: cheap, dingy coveralls, and a worn leather jacket cut in a way that might have been fashionable a decade or two ago. With humans it was hard to tell, the styles they favored were so rarely influenced by utilitarian value. Garrus made a cursory check of the pockets, taking care not to disturb the position of the body. Nothing. He continued to pat down the rest of the man’s clothing, more out of habit than any real hope of discovery. 

To his surprise, above the right lapel of the man’s jacket, he felt his talons brush over a familiar shape. Reaching inside a hidden pocket, he withdrew a credit chit, scuffed but intact.

He stared down at the chit, frowning. 

Behind him, the officer cleared his throat. 

“Something else I can help you with?” Garrus asked, carefully sealing the chit into an evidence bag.

The officer hesitated, glancing back over his shoulder again. “It’s your partner, sir.”

Garrus winced. The officer’s sub-vocals were practically bristling with unspoken complaints. But then again, he reflected, pocketing the evidence bag, Detective Marlo Hiks tended to have that effect on people.

“What’s the issue?” he asked, straightening up.

“He’s aggravating the Keepers,” the officer said, radiating relief at having offloaded the responsibility to a superior. “It’s creating a public disturbance.”

Just what he needed, Garrus thought, rubbing his brow. It was never a good idea to cause a scene on the job, but it was especially inadvisable to do so near the Embassies. The last people you wanted to notice you were the ones with a direct line to the Executor’s office. He shot a wistful glance over his shoulder, where he could see a hi-vis clad turian distributing beverages from a steaming tray of disposable cups. Kava first, he promised himself, then damage control.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something that looked suspiciously like one of those very same cups go sailing through the air in a high, wide arc. It landed with an audible splat in the greenery a few feet beyond the perimeter line, causing nearby patrol officers to dance backward from the resulting spray of hot liquid. A familiar figure walked forward, gesticulating wildly.

“Right,” Garrus said, mentally adjusting his trajectory with an internal sigh. “On it.”

Hiks’s reputation as an eccentric had been firmly established long before he and Garrus were partnered together. He’d been a fixture of the Investigation Division for nearly a decade; an impressive stretch of time by salarian standards.In his weaker moments, Garrus sometimes wondered if the assignment was meant as an oblique form of punishment, or perhaps the Executor’s idea of a joke. Still, if the year he’d spent working alongside Marlo Hiks had served as a confirmation of all the worst rumors of the salarian’s erratic conduct, it had also taught Garrus there was usually some tangled skein of logic woven throughout his actions, even if it wasn’t always obvious at first— or second, or third— glance. 

He tried to remind himself of that now, as he was greeted by the sight of his partner kneeling in a puddle, prodding at an increasingly agitated Keeper, a semi-circle of disgruntled, kava-splattered patrol officers surrounding them both. 

To hell with it, he thought, abruptly circling back. There was no way he was dealing with this without kava.  

The officer tasked with distributing beverages had her head craned around to stare at the commotion like everyone else. “Thanks,” Garrus said with a nod, trying his best to ignore the way she held the tray out in front of her body like a deflection shield at his advance. One of the unfortunate side effects of working so closely with someone who might kindly be described as a walking breach of protocol was that the association tended to rub off. Nevertheless, with the kava warming his hand, and a by now familiar feeling of apprehension churning in his gut, he trudged over to join the group of civilians and C-Sec officers that had gathered around his partner.

At his approach, Hiks glanced up from where he knelt beside the Keeper. “Ah, good morning Vakarian.”

“Morning yourself,” Garrus said, edging his way through the curious onlookers. A strong whiff of spilled kava rose up to greet him, sharp and earthy in his nostrils. “What’s going on here?”

“They were late,” Hiks said cryptically. Garrus waited for him to elaborate, but he’d gone back to examining the Keeper, which was applying itself to the task of cleaning up the spill with all the zealous fervor of a religious man at prayer. 

Garrus looked around the assembled crowd, raising a brow-plate expectantly. One of the patrol officers near the front of the crowd— a younger-looking human man he didn’t recognize— flushed. 

“He wanted to know what time the report came in,” he said in a half whisper, aiming a nervous glance down at Hiks. “I told him we got the tip around three am.“ He swallowed. “That’s when he started chasing after the Keeper.”

Garrus frowned. It had been closer to five when he’d received the call. “Took you a while to contact us.”

“We didn’t find the body until half past four,” the officer admitted. “This area of the park is technically considered part of the Elcor Embassy, so we had to wait for clearance from their Ambassador’s office before we were authorized to activate the search-and-rescue VI program.” He flushed deeper when he realized what it sounded like. “Not that that’s any excuse, sir.”

The delayed response time wasn’t going to win them any points with the public, but it was typical of the way things were run. In the quotes he gave to the press, the Executor was fond of comparing C-Sec to an expertly calibrated mech, but privately Garrus thought it was more like one of the older models that no one bothered updating because the cost of retrofits alone would put the project underwater before it even got started. Still, for all that he chafed against the red tape, it was hardly an excuse to start tossing kava around like flashbang grenades.

He shot a perplexed look back at Hiks. “Okay, so they were late. Why are you tormenting that Keeper?”

“Testing a theory.” Apparently satisfied with the Keeper, Hiks looked up at Garrus and blinked. “Care to lend a hand?”

“Sure,” Garrus said, deciding it was better to humor him, “but I don’t see how- Hey!“ Before he could finish, Hiks reached up and snatched the cup of kava out of his grasp. 

“Observe.” With a swiftness and grace that belied his gawky frame, Hiks lobbed the cup up in a high, underhand toss. It sailed over Garrus’s head, passing above the crowd that looked on in horrified awe, and landed with a wet smack on the pathway behind them, missing the corpse by mere feet. 

At the sound of its impact, the Keeper’s antenna twitched. For a moment it tilted its head sideways, as if listening to something. Then it shook itself and scuttled off toward the mess.

Mindful of the public scrutiny, Garrus attempted to suppress his frustration long enough to summon a response that might reasonably fall within the parameters of professional conduct. But he was preempted by one of the turian patrol officers, who shouldered past the human, mandibles twitching with the righteous indignation of a man who’d just witnessed a crime committed before his very eyes. “Sir,” he sputtered, “with all due respect, littering is in direct violation of code 4261 of the Citadel charter-“

“Irrelevant,” Hiks said, the lower lids coming up over his eyes as he watched the Keeper progress.

The turian bristled, and the people behind him pressed in closer. Anticipating that the situation was about to pivot even further out of his control, Garrus moved to intervened.

“Everyone, step away from the boundary,” he said, addressing the crowd. “C-Sec personnel only beyond this line.” With his luck there’d be vids of Hiks lobbing kava cups all over the afternoon news. “You,” he said, nodding at the livid patrol officer. “Clear the perimeter.”

The turian officer looked as if he would have liked to protest, but Garrus shot him a warning look. With a stiff nod, he began to usher the crowd away.

Garrus swung back around to face to his partner, not bothering to mask his anger this time. “Spirits, Hiks, this is a crime scene. You might want to show a little restraint-“ 

“Vakarian,” Hiks hissed, grabbing his arm. His pupils had dilated so wide his eyes looked almost black. “ _Look_.”

Reluctantly, Garrus turned to look.

The cup lay where it had fallen, kava spread out in a wide arc, dark against the white of the footpath. But the Keeper-

Garrus’s vision sharpened. The Keeper appeared to be having some kind of seizure. It had stopped a foot short of the kava, its body jerking and writhing as if caught in an electric current. With a final helpless spasm, its limbs went slack, and it crumpled soundlessly to the ground.

Garrus swore. Shrugging out of Hiks’s grip, he took a cautious step forward. “Is it…?”

Hiks shook his head, not taking his eyes off the Keeper. “Wait.” 

Ignoring him, Garrus moved closer, examining the Keeper for signs of life. Its eyes were locked open, staring blankly up at the clouds. This close, he could see that beneath its gray-green plates the flesh at its joints was black and corrugated, almost like exposed pvc piping. It gave the creature an oddly half-finished look.

As he leaned in to get a better look, the Keeper twitched, nearly startling him out of his hide. He hastily jumped back as it lurched upright. Legs trembling under the strain, it skittered back a few steps, dull eyes still fixed on the spill. Yet it made no further movement toward the slowly spreading puddle of kava.

Nor, Garrus realized with a sudden flash of clarity, did it attempt to approach the body that lay just beyond it. 

Three am to half past four, he thought, angry at himself for having missed the obvious. That’s how long the body had sat unattended. In the Wards, the Keepers would have been on it within thirty minutes. In the middle of the Presidium’s night cycle, with no one around to deter them, it should have been even faster.

“Should determine the scope of the effect.” Hiks was practically vibrating with excitement. “If restricted to this area, may have significant implications for the case.” 

That was an understatement, Garrus thought, still staring at the dazed Keeper. If something was affecting the Keepers, it would have significant implications for the entire Citadel. But was it a case of intentional tampering, or just some obscure behavioral tic? 

He mentally reviewed what he knew of the odd creatures. They had been on the Citadel for as long as anyone could remember. They showed no interest in anything beyond the maintenance of the Citadel, to the extent that C-Sec’s Network division considered them little more than an organic extension of the Citadel’s core systems. They were harmless and reclusive, and citizens were generally encouraged to ignore them. 

Garrus frowned. It was easy, too easy, to think of the Keepers as a known variable, when in reality almost nothing about them was understood. If they were vulnerable to outside interference…

He shook his head, and tried to marshal his thoughts back into safer territory. It was on account of the body that he’d hauled himself out of bed at the ass-end of the night cycle and driven all the way up to the Presidium, he reminded himself sternly. The body, specifically the state it was in and how it had got that way, was where his duty lay. 

“We’ll have pathology check it out,” he said with what he hoped was more confidence that he felt. They’d know better than he did what was and wasn’t normal for the Keepers, and they’d have access to the equipment needed to run the necessary environmental tests. Whoever the lab sent up probably wouldn’t be too happy about having the extra work sprung on them, but after the delay they’d put him through, he didn’t much care.

Hiks was still watching the Keeper with the rapt attention of a child who had discovered a new toy. 

Garrus cleared his throat. “I recommend you restrict any further ‘tests’ to the far side of the perimeter,” he said pointedly. “Unless you want to explain to the lab why the victim is covered in kava.”

Hiks blinked. “Fair point,” he conceded. He glanced down at the corpse, as if just registering its presence. “Any progress with identification?”

“His omni-tool’s been removed, and he’s not coming up in the database,” Garrus, said, delving into his pockets. “But I found this on him.” He held out the bag with the credit chit.

Most of the offenses committed within the parkland sectors of the Presidium were crimes of opportunity, perpetrated by those looking to take whatever they could grab and run before an alarm was raised. But it was a rare thief who would go through the trouble of beating a man to death only to take his omni-tool and leave his credits.

As he’d hoped, it was odd enough to spark Hiks’s curiosity. “May I?” the salarian asked, his attention narrowing in on the chit with laser focus. 

“Sure,” Garrus said, tossing it over. With luck it would keep him occupied long enough for any remaining bystanders to get bored and wander off. “See if you can get anything off it. My omni-tool’s acting up today.”

Hiks clicked his tongue disapprovingly as he scanned the chit. “You’ve been tinkering with it again.”

“No I haven’t.“ Not much anyway, he amended silently.

“Inadvisable. Addition of new programs will only slow down core functions.” 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t remind me.” It was hard to believe it could get any slower than it already was, but working at C-Sec had taught him not to make assumptions. 

As Hiks skimmed through the data, Garrus turned his attention to the parkland bordering the crime scene, trying to glean whatever information he could from the surrounding vegetation. 

None of the assorted flora that grew within the Presidium gardens were native to the Citadel. They had all been sourced from plant species preserved within the Council’s private seedbank, grown to maturity in on-site greenhouses, and then carefully transferred into a facsimile of their natural habitat by the Presidium’s groundskeeping staff. At one point, Garrus remembered, there had been an initiative to include fauna as well. Nothing large or aggressive, just a few handpicked avian, aquatic, and insect organisms that the groundskeepers deemed amenable to life on Citadel. The idea had been to cultivate a diverse, teeming paradise— a complementary blend of carefully selected species from a multitude of different planets, all living together in one harmonious, biologically impossible garden— in essence, a microcosm of the Citadel Council itself. The project’s official launch was accompanied by much fanfare from the press, which only made it all the more embarrassing when it became obvious that it was a failure. 

Within the course of one week, every single specimen vanished. Their disappearance was as absolute as it was inexplicable— not a single scale, feather, or antenna of the unfortunate creatures was ever found. The groundskeeping staff was accused of not vetting the species properly. There were even vague rumors that the project had been sabotaged from within. Amid public outcry, a crack team of biologists was hastily assembled to investigate the situation. Despite months of research, the only explanation they were ever able to produce was that some aspect of Citadel’s environment had proven unexpectedly hostile to the small life forms. After that, the groundskeepers stuck to greenery.

This sector of the park was populated by tall, sturdy trees that Garrus guessed were native to Dekuuna. While the trees themselves were leafless, every inch of exposed bark was covered in soft green vegetation that hung down in a wispy fringe. The twisting spread of their branches suggested that left unchecked they would have formed a lush, impenetrable canopy of interlocking boughs, but here they were too well pruned to provide anything more than partial cover. An altercation would have been plainly visible to anyone within fifty feet. 

He looked up, scanning the infrastructure overhead. Skycar traffic was restricted near the Embassies, but there was a designated commuter lane not far off. Someone pulling over in the night cycle might have gone unnoticed.

He was growing more and more certain that the body had been dumped. For one thing, an assault of this severity should have created splatter. Yet aside from the flaking layer of dried blood that had hardened beneath the corpse, the pathway was practically untouched. There was also the matter of the killer’s methods. Even in the relative dark of the night cycle, the prolonged beating the victim had sustained would have been risky to deliver out in the open. The sheer number of wounds inflicted suggested that the killer had staged the attack in a location they’d felt was reasonably secure; a place where they could take their time without fear of discovery. But that would imply the attack had been premeditated.

Despite his best efforts, his picture of the killer kept shifting in and out of focus. Part of the problem lay with the credit chit— it didn’t fit the rest of the profile. Leaving it behind looked like an error made in haste by someone eager to flee the scene, the type of slip-up consistent with a crime of passion. And yet the wounds themselves spoke of deliberation. It took time to mete out that kind of vicious, controlled violence. More than enough time for the initial thrill of rage to wear off, for the seeds of doubt and fear to unfurl into dark, clinging tendrils. Whatever had compelled the killer to keep going, it hadn’t been something as simple as anger, Garrus was sure of it.

The sound of Hiks’s voice cut his speculation short. “Found him.”

Garrus felt his heartbeat accelerate. “You got his name?”

“Better than that,” Hiks said, digits flying over the interface of his omni-tool. “Got his address.”

Garrus craned his neck over Hiks’s shoulder. An account summary appeared on the screen, displaying a neat column of transactions. Hiks pointed to a line of numbers at the top. 

“Chit was issued at the start of the month by a company called Lunar Cab. Infrequent activity since then.” Scrolling through the list, he stopped at a sum that was much larger than any of the surrounding figures. “Most significant withdrawal was five days ago, to Akiba Estates.“ He looked up at Garrus, his eyes gleaming. “Residential property in the Zakera Ward.”

Holding his breath, Garrus entered the property name into his nav system, almost fumbling the keys in his eagerness. With a sharp chirp, his omni-tool projected the map out in a softly glowing rectangle, highlighting an apartment building located in the 700 block of the Zakera Ward. 

Hiks caught his eye over the edge of the display. “That neighborhood’s at the far end of the Zakera Ward. Could take additional time to contact management and gain access,” he said, an unspoken question lingering beneath the words.  

Garrus was already scouring the map, mentally calculating the fastest route. “One of us should go right now,” he said, looking up. Hiks nodded, his expression apprehensive. Garrus knew they were both thinking the same thing— the longer they waited, the greater the chance someone else might get there first. 

“I’ll stay,” Hiks offered, surprising him. He nodded toward the spilled kava, and grimaced. “As you said, might need to provide some, ah, explanation to the lab.”

Garrus was oddly touched. It was the first time he could remember that Hiks had displayed any kind of consideration for his feelings. For a moment he was tempted to take him up on the offer, but he quickly thought better of it. Pathology would have specialized equipment, but they would also have questions. As much as he was itching to get inside the victim’s residence, it would be a mistake to leave the task of answering them to Hiks, whose mind was capable of FTL speed jumps, and was almost as difficult to follow.  

“You go ahead,” he said, shaking his head. 

“You’re sure?” Hiks cocked his head doubtfully.

“Positive,” Garrus lied. “I want to talk to the doctor anyway, see if they can give us anything useful before they stick him in the freezer.” 

Every so often Hiks got a look on his face that made Garrus wonder if the salarian was actually as oblivious as he seemed. It was there now; a little knowing, and a little sad. 

Hell, it was bad enough he spent half his job playing nanny to an officer nearly twice his age, Garrus thought, with a sudden flare of resentment— he refused to feel guilty about it as well. Still, he had difficulty meeting the salarian’s eyes.

Hiks seemed to take it in stride. “Very well,” he said, ducking his head. “Will contact you if I find anything interesting.”

The thought of just what he might find made Garrus reconsider. “Wait,” he said, catching Hiks by the shoulder. “Take one of the patrol officers with you to watch the place while you’re inside. And drive around the block a couple times before you go in. No surprises.”

”Don’t worry, Vakarian,” Hiks said, patting his arm. “Will take all available precautions.” This time Garrus had the distinct impression that he was the one being humored.  

After he left, Garrus began to circle around the park, looking for any signs that the area had been recently disturbed. More and more people were starting to trickle through the Presidium, stopping to peer at the restricted area before continuing on their way. On the far side of the perimeter, one of the patrol officers was attempting to explain to an irate elcor why it couldn’t access the park. Further off Garrus could hear the cheerful banter of the concession vendors as they set up their stands, and he caught the faint scent of spiced meat drifting seductively through the air. Stomach growling, he turned back toward the body, hoping to find the doctor waiting for him.

Instead, he found the Keeper. 

It had wandered around to the opposite side of the pathway, still staring at the kava. Both sets of tiny hands flexed and twitched toward the spill, yet it maintained a careful distance.

As Garrus watched, half hidden behind the trees, he saw its antenna quiver again. Its arms dropped limp at its sides.  

Slowly, its head swiveled around until its blank eyes were staring straight at him. It took one step forward and stopped, flat mouth opening wide. Garrus caught the flicker of its slim, pale tongue scenting the air. Then it shook itself, and scuttled away into the undergrowth. 

…

It took pathology another hour to show up. 

By that time Garrus had almost succeeded in convincing himself that the whole thing had been some kind of hunger induced hallucination. Nevertheless, he informed the lead doctor — a dour, greying human woman with sharp brown eyes— of what he’d witnessed. At one point during his explanation his omni-tool pinged, but it was only a call from his sister. He let it go unanswered. Whatever Solana wanted could keep until he’d finished up for the day. 

It was patently obvious the human didn’t believe a word he said. She made a great show of jotting down notes, all the while regarding Garrus in a sidelong way that made it plain she thought he was nuts. As frustrating as it was, he couldn’t find it within himself to blame her. He’d probably react the same way if he hadn’t seen the Keeper short out like a bad circuit right before his eyes.

Her team had just begun to inspect the body when Garrus’s omni-tool buzzed again.

This time it was a message from Hiks. 

‘ _Come now. Need to see this_.’

Hiks’s messages had never been particularly long winded, but it wasn’t like him to be dramatic. Rattling off apologies to the doctor over one shoulder, Garrus loped down the pathway toward the reservoir where he’d parked his skycar. 

As he entered the dead man’s address into the nav system, he experienced a heady, almost euphoric jolt of adrenaline, a reaction he had come to associate with the start of a promising new case. The initial rush was so strong that he was halfway to the lower Wards before he registered that the cold, prickling feeling was back in his spine.


End file.
